Former White House volunteer sues Clinton, others

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Kathleen Willey Schwicker, a former White House volunteer who accused President Clinton of fondling her in 1993, said Thursday she has sued Clinton, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and various White House aides claiming they violated her privacy and civil rights.

Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that has brought a number of lawsuits against the Clinton White House, filed the latest case in federal court in Washington, D.C., mainly over the White House's release of letters she had written to Clinton.

Schwicker, at the time known as Kathleen Willey, was a former White House volunteer who alleged in a 1998 national television interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" that Clinton groped her while they were together near the Oval Office. Clinton has denied the allegation.

The White House released her letters, which were friendly in tone, the day after the interview in an effort to undermine her credibility. The allegations arose during the Monica Lewinsky sex-and-perjury investigation that led to Clinton's impeachment and acquittal.

"I will not sit by while those in power come down like a ton of bricks on one woman fighting alone. I will go to court to seek redress," Schwicker said at a news conference outside the courthouse.

"My children have been threatened, my government files have been released and my life's innermost secrets have been dragged through the press. I am only one private citizen and he is the president, but that is why we have courts -- to protect people like me from abuses from people like him," she said.

The lawsuit accused the White House of intentionally releasing the letters and other confidential information about her, and that she has suffered "substantial damages, including but not limited to loss of reputation and emotional distress."

The suit also accused the defendants of engaging in a scheme to violate the privacy law, "destroying her good name, credibility and reputation."

Among those named in the lawsuit were the president and first lady, current White House aides Sidney Blumenthal and Bruce Lindsey, former aides Charles Ruff and Cheryl Mills, the president's lawyer, David Kendall, and "the executive office of the president."

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Judicial Watch previously had raised the Schwicker allegations of privacy law violations as part of its separate civil lawsuit over the White House's gathering of hundreds of secret FBI background files on Republican appointees.

The news conference was held a day after independent counsel Robert Ray announced that his office had found insufficient evidence to charge the Clintons over the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas.

In March, Ray concluded there was no substantial and credible evidence that Mrs. Clinton or any senior White House official had been involved in seeking the FBI background reports.

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